pentagon unveils budget cuts

Marine Corps will drop from 202,000 active-duty troops to 182,000; some Navy ships to be retired, others delayed

The Navy and Marines will take hits in the upcoming Pentagon budget, including a slightly larger than expected reduction in Marine troops, early retirement of seven Navy cruisers and two small amphibious ships, delays in the Joint Strike Fighter plan and future shipbuilding, and more limited raises for service members starting in 2015.

The outline released Thursday by the Defense Department provides a broad sketch of its proposed 2013 budget, the first year of a 10-year plan to reduce defense spending by $487 billion.

For military retirees, it will mean higher health care costs in the future. The changes mostly target people under 65 with new and increased fees. The Pentagon declined to be specific about the limits to future pay raises.

The nation may undergo another round of base closures, which have affected San Diego in the past, spurring a controversial and protracted redevelopment of the former Point Loma Navy boot camp into what is now Liberty Station.

But the Pentagon’s increased focus on Asia and the Pacific in response to the challenge posed by China’s growing military and an aggressive North Korea may protect San Diego from deep cuts during this period of belt-tightening.

The region might lose a few of the roughly 50 warships docked in the bay, and Camp Pendleton will likely house fewer lance corporals, but military officials and analysts predict that the principal home of the Pacific Fleet will continue to be viewed in Washington as strategically important.

“Overall, I’d say San Diego should expect to be mildly affected by these cuts discussed today,” said retired Vice Adm. Peter Daly, chief executive of the U.S. Naval Institute, which held a three-day annual conference at the San Diego Convention Center this week.

As for base closures, “It’s my sense that there’s not a ton of excess capacity in San Diego, but that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be some de-layering and some removal of staffs and some efficiencies taken,” he said.

San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio, a mayoral candidate, on Thursday called for the formation of a civic task force to coordinate a response against any base closures here.

“San Diego is a proud military town. Any cuts to military forces or installations in the region will have a devastating effect on our economy and the character of this city,” DeMaio said in a statement.

Congress would have to agree to take up base closures, but that is unlikely to happen in an election year.

Larry Blumberg, chief executive of the San Diego Military Advisory Council, called the Pentagon’s budget an “overall win” for San Diego, in part because the Navy’s inventory of 11 aircraft carriers is protected.

Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations, on Monday confirmed to U-T San Diego that a third aircraft carrier will be assigned to San Diego by 2016.

More details are expected when President Barack Obama debuts his overall budget on Feb. 13.

The Pentagon’s plan seeks $525 billion in funding, plus an additional $88 billion for operations in Afghanistan. Combined, those totals are about $33 billion less than the Pentagon is spending this fiscal year.

Under Thursday’s proposal, the Marine Corps will drop from 202,000 active-duty troops to 182,000 — 4,000 fewer than the Marines requested following a recent strategic review. But the Marines would still be about 5,000 troops larger than before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The Army, by comparison, will take a larger hit, shrinking by 80,000 soldiers — from 570,000 today to 490,000 by 2017. That is slightly larger than the Army before 9/11.

Big-deck amphibious ships, which carry Marines on deployment, will be protected, though a new one will be delayed a year. San Diego is home to four, and they correspond to Marine expeditionary units at Camp Pendleton.

Other details from the budget release:

• Purchase of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter stealth jets, to be fielded by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, will be slowed.

• The Air Force will retire some older planes, including about two dozen C-5A cargo aircraft and 65 of its oldest C-130 cargo planes.

• The Navy will receive funding to station littoral combat ships in Singapore and patrol craft in Bahrain. The Pentagon also announced funding for a new “afloat forward” staging base that can be used for missions in areas where the U.S. can’t use ground bases.

In addition to retiring seven of the Navy’s 22 cruisers, several pieces of the Navy’s shipbuilding program will be delayed. Besides the big-deck amphibious ships, a Virginia-class submarine, two littoral ships and eight joint high-speed vessels will be deferred for several years. The two smaller amphibious ships to be retired early will not be replaced in the next few years. The Navy, which keeps seven cruisers in San Diego, has not said which ships will be affected.

• Citing high cost, the Air Force will cancel the Block 30 Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk high-altitude unmanned surveillance aircraft, in favor of the veteran U-2 program. Management of that program occurs in Northrop’s San Diego offices, a spokesman said.

In a statement, the company said it is “disappointed with the Pentagon’s decision” and plans to work with defense leaders to “assess alternatives to program termination.”

Northrop added that Global Hawk has demonstrated its military usefulness in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and helped with humanitarian operations in Japan and Haiti.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, said the Marine Corps reduction would take that service close to the “absolute minimum threshold” and the whole of the military “dangerously close to its tipping point.”

“This budget begins the process of putting in motion deep cuts to our national defense. Instead of calculating our security investments based on existing and emerging threats, while looking for efficiencies wherever possible, this plan ignores the full scope of danger facing U.S. and global security,” Hunter, a Marine Corps veteran who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said in a written statement.

Hinting at what’s expected to be a major budget fight, Hunter said that any further defense cuts would create a “hollow force” — a term that military advocates have used to indicate the worst possible outcome.

Looming is the possibility of another $600 billion in defense cuts over a decade if Congress fails to find other ways to reduce the deficit. The sequestration option would come atop the budget cuts announced Thursday.

Pentagon officials have said the programs they saved, such as retirement benefits for those who have already served, will likely have to go back on the chopping block if the sequestration process kicks in.